WIT As opposed to HUMOR
WIT As opposed to HUMOR. Old and unedited article The ludicrous has two general divisions, not always distinguished, and not easy accurately to define, yet between which it is important to discriminate. These are wit and humor, some differences between which may be pointed out in a series of parallel Descriptions. 1. Humor is enjoyed in proportion as it is expected; wit in proportion as it is 'unexpected. The first limit to be affixed to that observation of relations which produces the feeling of wit is that they must be relations which excite surprise. If you tell me that all men must die I am very little struck with what you say, because it is not an assertion very remarkable for its novelty ; but if you were to say that man was like an hour-glass—that both must run out, and both render up their dust, I should listen to you with more attention, because I should feel something like surprise at the sudden relation you had struck out between two such apparently dissimilar ideas as a man and a time- glass. —SYDNEY SMITH. To compare one man's singing to that of another, or to represent the whiteness of any object by that of milk or snow, or the variety of its colors by those of the rainbow, cannot be called wit, unless besides this obvious resemblance there be some further congruity discovered in the two ideas that is capable of giving the reader some surprise. Thus when a poet tells us the bosom of his mistress is as white as snow there is no wit in the comparison ; but when he adds with a sigh that it is as cold, too, it then grows into wit. - ADDISON. Hence wit bears no repetition. If we enjoy hearing or telling a witty thing a second time it is not for the sensation of perceiving the wit itself, but to observe its expression in those who have not before heard it, a pleasure akin rather to humor. In antithesis the pleasure of wit is increased by prevision of the witty climax. Thus when a man bolds up a letter left at his door containing only the words "April Fool, " and says, "I have often heard of people who wrote letters and forgot to sign their names, but this is the first instance in which I have known a man "—by this time the quick hearer has completed the anti- climax and anticipates the conclusion—" to sign hi4 name and forget to write the letter. " Take another utterance of the same preacher : "The first day I was sea- sick I was afraid I should die ; the second day I didn't care whether I did or not ; the third day—I was afraid I shouldn't. " The hearer jumps at the climax and begins to laugh before it is enunciated. When Dean Stanley came to this country the proprietor of a certain hotel, anxious to do honor to his guest, stationed a boy at the speaking-tube leading from the dean's room, and said : "Now, boy, be very respectful. Listen attentively, and when you hear him call answer at once, and if he asks who is there reply, 'The boy, my lord. ' " The boy tried to follow instructions, but grew so nervous over their importance that when at last the dean did call through the tube and ask who was there the little fellow piped out :— By the time the story has got this far everybody knows the boy cried, "The Lord, my boy. " Here it might at first seem that the mind enjoyed the wit better because it was prepared for it—in other words, when there was less surprise. But the wit lies, not in enunciating the entire sentence, but in conceiving it, and gives the hearer greater pleasure because the mind is able to do more than is asked of it ; not only appreciate the point, but anticipate it. Brevity is the soul of wit, and wit is most enjoyed by those who can communicate it by short-hand reporting. To perceive in the middle of a sentence what most of the world will catch only at the end is a mental triumph as gratifying as it is exhilarating. On the other hand, to appreciate the humorous the mind needs, as it were, to adjust itself, and sometimes loses the pleasure of the first sentence or two of a humorous Description because it is not quite certain whether what is said is to be judged by matter-of-fact standards or looked at through the spectacles of humor. When it is assured of the latter it drops the customary attitude of critical judgment and settles down to enjoyment. 2. Witis instantaneous ; humor is continuous. A witty story may be long, but only that the hearers' minds may be thoroughly prepared to appreciate the catastrophe; or if it consist of witty dialogue, each happy hit gives its individual pleasure, like so many taps ; the taps may even be too frequent, as in Sheridan's comedies. Humor may characterize an entire Description, a whole book, all that is known of an intimate acquaintance. Humor pervades, while wit embellishes. Humor glows, wit sparkles. Humor may be manifest in action. Wit must be expressed in words. In both there is perception of incongruity, but in wit the connection of the two incongruous ideas is made by language, while in humor it may result from movement. As you increase the incongruity you increase the humor ; as you diminish it you diminish the humor. If a tradesman of corpulent and respectable appearance, with habiliments somewhat too ostentatious, were to slide down gently into the mud and decorate a pea- green coat, I am afraid we should all have the barbarity to laugh. If his hat and wig, like treacherous servants, were to desert their falling master, it certainly would not diminish our propensity to laugh. But if he were to fall into a violent passion and abase everybody about him, nobody could possibly resist the incongruity of a pea-green tradesman, very respectable, sitting in the mud and threatening all the passers-by with the effects of his wrath. Here every circumstance heightens the humor of the scene—the gaiety of his tunic, the general respectability of his appearance, the rills of muddy water which trickle down his cheeks, and the harmless violence of his rage. But if instead of this we were to observe a dustman falling into the mud it would hardly attract any attention, because the opposition of ideas is so trifling and the incongruity so • slight. -SYDNEY Slum • • • Wit may be wholly imaginative. . Humor involves sentiment and character. In fact the quality of wit exists wherever imagination percolates through the understanding ; the sediment is the grain-gold of wit. But the quality of humor, depending upon various moral traits, exists only wherever a broad imagination is combined with a sweet and tolerant moral sense that is devoid of malice and all uncharitableness and at peace with all mankind. —Wiass. In the simply laughable there is a mere disproportion between a definite act and a definite person or end ; or a disproportion of the end itself to the rank or circumstances of the definite person. Combination of thoughts, words, or images will not of itself constitute humor, unless some peculiarity of temperament or character be indicated thereby as the cause of the same. The excellencies of Sterne consist in bringing forward into distinct consciousness those minuticeof thought and feeling which appear trifles yet have an importance for the moment, and which almost every man feels in one way or other. Thus is produced the novelty of an individual peculiarity, together with the interest of a something that belongs to our common nature. In short, Sterne seizes happily on those points in which every man is more or less a humorist. And, indeed, to be a little more subtle, the propensity to notice these things does in itself constitute the humorist, and the superadded power of so presenting them to men in general gives us the man of humor. -COLFIUDGE. The four humors in a man, according to the old physicians, were blood, choler, phlegm, and melancholy. So long as these were duly mixed all would be well. But so soon as any of them unduly preponderated the man became humorous, one humor or another bearing too great a sway in him. As such his conduct would not be according to the received rule of other men, but have something peculiar, whimsical, self-willed in it. In this self- asserting character of the humorous man lay the point of contact between the modern use of humor and the ancient. It was his humor which would lead a man to take an original view and aspect of things, a humorous aspect, first in the old sense, and then in that which we now employ. The great passage in English literature on humor and its history is the prologue, or "stage, " as it is called, to Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His Humor. " PUNS. The most purely abstract form of wit is punning, which Weiss defines a constraint of two different ideas to be ex pressed by one word, while wit proper is the constraint of two different objects to be expressed by one idea. Several classes of puns have been distinguished. Where the same form has several meanings, as Fair :1, beautiful; 2, just ; 3, a market- place. • At one light bound high overleaped all bound. —Paradise Lost. • • "I'm transported to see you, " as the convict said to the kangaroo. • • "You are very pressing, " as the filbert said to the nut-cracker. • A gentleman observed one day to Mr. Erskine that punning was the lowest kind of wit. "It is so, " he replied, "and therefore at the foundation of them all. " I am something like a corn-field, with plenty of ears but no particular idea of music. —Joirs PIKENDE. Dean Ramsey tells of a soaked Scotch minister who was rubbed down at the kirk, and told be need not fear ; he would be dry enough when he got into the pulpit. Where two words of different meaning are pronounced alike though spelled differently ;as son and sun, peer and pier, etc. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew. —Merchant of Venice. Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads. -1d. They went and told the sexton, And the sexton tolled the bell. —HOOD. Theodore Hook said of an author who gave his publisher a dinner, "I suppose he poured his wine-cellar into his book-seller. " John Phcenix tells of a mother so frugal that her very first admonition to her infant was, "Buy low, baby. " While in the city of the Golden Gate I sent to the cook for a broiled chop, but he sent me a fried one. It must be a satisfaction in one's last moments to receive consolation from a San Franciscan friar. —Id. The shadow of myself formed in her eye, Which, being but the shadow of your son, Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow. —King John. A third class is of those that are spelled differently, and pronounced nearly though not quite alike ; as, baron, barren ; season, seizing, etc. , though these more frequently produce malaprops than puns, Mrs. Malaprop talks of contagious countries, and recommends a nice derangement of epitaphs. There are cases in which a phrase or idiom consisting of two or three words may be used equivocally, and thus considered as a pun. Sydney Smith, hearing a boy read of patriarchs as partridges, declared it was too bad to make game of them. "Is Mr. Smith a legal voter?" asked a politician at election. "Yes, " replied a by-stander, "but being sick abed he is an ill-legal voter to-day. " One day, observing on a board the warning, "Beware the dog, " Hood wrote underneath, "Ware be the dog ? " John Phcenix tells of an inquisitive man who married simply because, having exhausted all other subjects of inquiry, he asked the young lady if she would have him. • For if the Jew do cut but deep enough, • 1. ru pay it instantly with all my heart. 2. • —Merchant of Venice. • In Milton there are less puns than conceits, after the spirit of Italian literature. Highly they raged against the Highest. —Paradise Lost. His only pleasure is to be displeased. -COWPER. "There's something in that, " as the cat said when she peeped into the milk-jug. vi. The double pun is usually too elaborate to have the mark of spontaneousness indispensable even to moderate enjoyment of a pun. Freshman. —May I have the pleasure ? Miss Society. —Oui. Freshman. —Wbat does " we " mean ? Miss S. -0, U and I, When Oujda asked Charles Heade for a name for her dog he suggested "Tonic, " adding, "it is sure to be a mixture of bark, steal, and whine. " "Ten days or ten dollars, " said the judge, and the prisoner, a sullen- looking fellow, paid the fine and was discharged. He walked moodily out of the court-room, but when he reached the door turned and showered a tirade of profane abuse upon the magistrate- Then he ran into the corridor, but before he could reach the street he was recaptured, and stood again before the bar. "Ten dollars more, " said the judge ; "if you had used language more chaste and refined, you would not have thus been chased and refined. " Coleridge remarks : "Baxter, like most scholastic logicians, had a sneaking affection for puns. The cause is—the necessity of attending to the primary sense of words, that is, the visual image or general relation expressed, and which remains common to all the after-senses, however widely or even incongruously differing from each other in other respects. For the same reason schoolmasters are commonly punsters. 'I have endorsed your Bill, sir, ' said a pedagogue to a merchant, meaning he had flogged his son William. " But no man of sense betrays an affection for puns which is not sneaking. The temptation is often irresistible, but the offence should be accompanied by an apology, at least implied in the inflection, or in an humble drop of the eyelids Let it never be forgotten that a pun for its own sake is at best but playful, and is permissible only when play is permissible. Think of finding in grave discourse a triviality like this: " %Then the infinite I AM beheld his work of creation, he said Thou Art. , and ART was. " While the mere pun is at best a childish frolicsomeness, the pun as an adjunct to wit may intensify the effect. When Sydney Smith recommended the bishops to lay their heads together to make a wooden pavement, and when Burke pointed out that majesty, deprived of its externals (m I a jest I y, ) was only a jest, judgment underlay the puns and converted the thought into sarcasm. Sometimes, however, a pun blunts the shaft of wit. For instance : Irony employs wit to feather its purport. A Frenchman said of a man who really did never make a witty remark : "How full of wit that man mast be I he never lets any escape. " That when translated is improved, because the English word any can refer at once to no wit and to no person's escaping the effect of wit. Thus the irony is increased —Wawa. On the contrary, so far as any doubt is produced as to whether the meaning is, let any man escape—which is pure irony—or let any wit escape—which is wit edged by a pun—the hearer is confused, and his perception, divided between two ideas, is not strongly impressed by either. It must be admitted that Charles Lamb, a capital authority, defends this very indefiniteness as follows: An Oxford scholar, meeting a porter who was carrying a hare through the streets, woods him with this extraordinary question " Prithee, friend, is that thy own hare or a wig?" There is no excusing this and no resisting it. A man might blur ten sides of paper In attempting a defense of it against a critic who should be laughter-proof. The quibble itself is not oonsidersble. It is only new turn given by little false pronunciation tea very common though not very courteous inquiry. Put by one gentleman to another at a dinner-party it would have been vapid to the mistress of the house it would have shown much less wit than rudeness. We must take in the totality of time, place, and person ; the pert look of the inquiring scholar, the desponding looks of the puzzled porter ; the one stopping at his leisure, the other hurrying on with his burden ; the innocent though rather abrupt tendency of the first member of the question, with the utter and inextricable irrelevancy of the second; the place_-a public street, not favorable to frivolous Investigation; the affrontive quality of the primitive inquiry (the common question) invidiously trantlerred to the derivative (the new turn given to it) in the implied satire— namely, that few of that tribe are expected to eat of the good things which they carry, they being in most °mottle; considered rather as the temporary trustees than owners of such dainties—which the fellow was beginning to understand ; but then wig again comes In, and he can make nothing of It; all put together constitute a picture HOgarth could have made it intelligible on canvas. Yet nine out of ten critics will pronounce this a very bad pun, because of the defectiveness in the concluding member, which is its very beauty, and constitutes the surprise. —Popular Pallados. -When the purpose of puns is to enliven what otherwise might be monotonous and dreary, puns appropriate and facile are often very entertaining. "Mr. Dnyckinck truly says that 'an auctioneer is bound to hold his own against all interlocutors. . . . It is his business to control the audiences and their purses. To do this he must keep his company in good humor, and least of all suffer any intellectual discomfiture. Reese never lost his superiority. ' "But let us get into the auction-room. A narrative of the Rattle of Waterloo is put up. 'How much for It?' Twenty-five cents was bid. There wilt: no quarter at the Battle of Waterloo, my dear sir. ' I believe it was the lute Mr. Gowans who, when the auctioneer held in his hand Some Account of the Centaurs, ' declared that there couldn't be a history of what never exited, and wanted an instance of a Centaur ; whereupon the doubter was referred to the Biblical record of the head of John the Baptist coming In on a charger. "A witticism sometimes might be beyond the ken of a portion of his audience, as when he spoke of Cadmus as the 'first post-boy, ' because he carried letters from Phcenicia to Greece;' but when he knocked down Dagley's 'Death's Doings ' for seventy-five cents to 'a decayed apothecary, ' with the consolatory comment of 'smallest fevers gratefully received, ' there was no lack of comprehension. Sellirg a black letter volume Concerning the Apparel of Ministers, ' he supposed it referred probably to their surplus ornaments;' and he assured his audience that the Poems of the Rev. Mr. Logan were the Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon—at all events the brays. "An illation of his readiness was when a parcel of fancy envelsves was passed ppto be sold in one lot. `How many are there?' was shouted from various parts of the room. 01 I don't know ; too many to number. How much for the lot" At last they were knocked down. What names' ' Cowper I' It shall be Cowper's Task to count them, ' instantly exclaimed the auctioneer. " A joke much relished by the Wok-binding fraternity was his likening ledger to Andes, because it was hacked and cornered by Russia ; and when it was knocked down to a Mr. Owen Makes he paused at the name and said reflectively : Don't know about selling to a man that's always Owen and Phalen. ' "At one of the sales of furniture a table of curious design was sold to bidder who left it to be called for. Some time elapsed, when a friend happening in admired the table, and wished to buy it at private sale. My father told hlm it wassold to party who thus far had proved himself the mowt un- com. for-table-man he ever knew. "I remember when a lot of Wade & Sntcher's Sheffield razors was included in the estalogoe the auctioneer said there was no limit to their sanguinary possibilities, for the purchaser might wade in blood and butcher all his friends. " Never mind, you'll have one volume less to read. ' he said to a bidder who found his set of books short ; and when another wanted to know wherethe outside of his copy of Lamb was, the auctioneer conjectured that somebody had fleeced ft, ' adding consolingly, but you can recover ft, you know. ' A back-gammon board was put up, ' to be sold on the square. and as perfect as any copy of Milton, ' which comparison necessitated the explanation th st there was a pair o' dice lost; and 'Three Eras of a Woman's Life, ' elicited the running comment of Wonderful woman—only three errors. How much—thirty cents—only ten cents apiece —not very expensive errors after all. '" The pleasure of wit lies in the understanding; of humor in the sentiment. Hence: Wit is without sympathy, while humor is based upon it. Wit laughs at, while humor laughs with. Wit punishes, but discomages ; humor is a solvent ill which the severest admonishings may be accepted hopefully. - We do well to consider that wit is an untractable faculty. Unless it is well bridled it will overleap the bounds of propriety. Most of the keen darts of wit that one hears whizzing by have been pointed, barbed, and poisoned by malignity, and fix on some person the stigma of vice, folly, or weakness. . . . The wit can hardly prevail on himself to withhold a gibe for the sake of affection. He falsely presumes that his friends will not smart under the thrusts he gives them ; or if they do, that they will forgive the offence since it is committed by him. So he goes on, putting their patience to the proof, till he has provoked them past endurance. He who would be a wit must be contentto boast few friends. A joke is an "air- drawn dagger, " from which our flesh instinctively shrinks. We see not the hand that grasps it, and cannot divine how deep it will strike ; should it prove harmless, we do not thank it for startling us. —thartsr. This sharpness of tongue provokes retort, the bitterness of which is not softened to the victim by the reflection that he has deserved it, and that the sympathy of by-standers will be with the one first offended. "No woman is worth looking at after thirty, " remarked a bride with youthful arrogance. "Quite true, " calmly replied her companion a few years older, "nor worth listening to before. " Talleyrand was lame, and Madame de Stiiel was cross-eyed. There was no love lost between them, and both disliked to be reminded of their infirmities. "Monsieur, " said madame, meeting her dearest foe one day, "pray how is that poor leg ?" "Crooked, as you see, Madame, " was the reply. Frederick the Second had a liking for the witty philosopher Mendelssohn, butWM once induced as an experiment to put at his plate the following note : Mentlelaeohn is an Asa PREMIUM II. Mendels8ohn took up the note, read it, and remarked that someone had taken an unpardonable liberty with his majesty, having here presumed to say that Mendelssohn was one ass, and that Frederick was the second. A certain petulant Greek, objecting to Anacharsis that he was a Scythian—" True, " says Anacharsis, " my country disgraces me, but you disgrace your country. " IRONY. Where wit is sarcastic, humor is ironical. Irony is jesting hidden beneath gravity, while humor is gravity concealed behind the jest. . . . The mind uses irony when it gravely states an opinion or sentiment which is the opposite of its belief, with the moral purpose of showing its real dissent from the opinion. It must, therefore, be done with this wink from the purpose in it, so that it may not pass for an acquiescence in an opposite sentiment. It may be done so well as to deceive even the very elect ; and perhaps the ordinary mind complains of irony as wanting in straightforwardness. There is a moment of hesitation, when the mind stoops over this single intention with a double appearance, and doubts upon which to settle as the real prey. So that only carefully poised minds with the falcon's or the vulture's glance can always discriminate rapidly enough to seize the point. In this moment of action the pleasure of irony is developed, which arises from a discovery of the contrast between the thing said and the thing intended. And this pleasure is heightened when we observe the contrast between the fine soul who means nobly and his speaking as if he meant to be ignoble. Then the ignoble thing is doubly condemned, first, by having been briefly mistaken to be the real opinion of the speaker, and then by the flash of recognition of the speaker's superiority. . . . In matters which are morally indifferent irony is only a jesting which is disguised by gravity, as when we apparently agree with the notions of another person which are averse from our own, so that we puzzle him not only on the point of our own notion, but on the point of his own, and he begins to have a suspicion that he is not sound in the matter. This suspicion is derived from the mind's instinctive feeling that irony is a trait of a superior person who can afford to have a stock of original ideas with which he tests opinion, and who holds them so securely that he can never play with them a losing game. . . . A man who pretends to hold the opposite of his own belief is morally a hypocrite until we detect that slight touch of banter which is the proof of genuine irony. Then we see that he is honest though he equivocates, for he belies himself with sincerity. A man who can afford this is to that extent superior to the man who, whether right or wrong, is hopelessly didactic, and incapable of commending his own opinions by the bold ease with which he may deplore them. —WEiss. Irony assumes on the part of the hearer a certain acquaintance with the speaker which gives the hearer reason to believe that the sentiments uttered cannot be the genuine belief of the speaker. Only so far as this ac quaintance is rightfully assumed has the speaker any right to complain if his irony is received as statement of fact, and if he is himself rated accordingly. Thus if an artist were to point out the superiority of a wretched wood-cut over a fine steel-engraving, a person who knew the woodcut to be wretched would do well to smile over the criticism as ironical. But if a stranger should gravely utter the same remarks, the same person might listen respectfully, having no reason to suppose that the stranger was less of an ignoramus than he represented himself, and not wishing to hurt his feelings by exposing his stupidity. Genuine humorists are occasionally rebuked by the grave stare of surprise called forth by a remark meant to be received as ironical. Especially common is this experience with children, whose calm glance of disapproval is often more effective than a stinging reply. Irony is often carried beyond decent bounds. When Sydney Smith explained to a shocked parishioner that he kept his dog chained because it had acquired an unfortunate habit of eating up the parish boys, buttons and all, his humor is possibly within reason, the buttons making it at least thoroughly obvious. But the question becomes doubtful when he informs a gentleman that he has one secret wish—to roast a Quaker ; adding that it may be wrong, that the Quaker would undoubtedly suffer acutely, but that everyone has his tastes, and his own is to roast a Quaker ; one would satisfy him, only one ; but it was one of the peculiarities he had striven against in vain, and he trusted his hearer would pardon his weakness. In like manner Charles Lamb, asked how he liked babies, stammered : " B-b- boiled. " A modern "humorist, " plagiarizing the irony and the pun, has elaborated them into a paragraph fit only for the Fiji-islanders : In every age and every clime the best and noblest men loved children. Even wicked men have a tender spot left in their hard cued hearts for little children. The great men of the earth love them. Dogs love them Kamahamekemokimodahroah, the king of the Cannibal islands, loves them—rare, and no gravy. Ali, yes, we all love children. —BurlingtonHatokeye. Equally revolting is the following : The best thing to make grape-vines grow is dogs ; bury. 'em right down among the roots. Some people prefer grandmothers and their other relations. But gi' me dogs and cats. —MAX AMMER. Swift's "Modest Proposal" for preventing the children of the poor in Ireland from being burdensome, and for making them beneficial by using them for food, was seriously quoted and condemned. The impulse to irony has been thus explained: Suppose I venture to play before a company a sonata of Beethoven, and that as I rise a lady rather gushingly exclaims: "Oh, thank you, thank you ; we have all enjoyed it so much I " Now, if I have played to my own fair satisfaction, I simply bow and say I am glad to have given pleasure. If the speaker is a friend, and I feel that I have done particularly well, I may even unbosom myself to the extent of remarking that I think the performance was tolerable for me. If I have been nervous, have blundered, have played much below my possibilities, I shall probably endeavor to suppress my annoyance, accept the compliments without comment, and change the subject. If I have played shockingly, losing all grasp of the spirit of the composition, and merely striking upon the piano the ivory and ebony equivalent of the notes on the score, without other thought than the set purpose to grit my teeth, sit firm on the stool, and get to the end of the piece without breaking down, I shall probably look my flatterer steadily in the eye as I remark that she is very kind to say so. But if in addition to utter failure in this instance I se-, that to attempt to play was idiötic, such pieces being far beyond my limited accomplishments, and if this individual discomfiture sinks indistinguishable into the general consciousness of ineffable weakness and stupidity, which alone could have persuaded me to try what a well-constructed automaton would know I was incapable to do, so that I long to get into the attic of an empty house and snort at myself, then I shall probably smile blandly on my tormentor, assure her that in congratulating me she chooses the right word, since the audience should share the honor of the performance, the finest artistic efforts being possible only in a company of artists, and that if I seemed at the moment to be inspired it was because the sympathy and appreciation of my listeners lifted me out of myself, so that instead of playing the sonata I had really been played by it, and so on. This I conceive to be irony. Whether I shall so turn the expression as to show my companion thatI mean it for irony depends upon the respect I have for her. If I like her I shall very likely intensify my expressions until she recognizes the sarcasm, even if I have to go to the extent of promising some time to play for her a piece really worthy of myself and the audience—" Silver Threads among the Gold, " for instance. But if I think her silly or malicious, it will probably relieve me a little to have her either believe all that I say, or believe that I believe it, in which case I shall graduate my exaggeration according to her credulity. There are three degrees of indignation. The first, indignation pure and simple, finds sufficient expression in strong words that directly manifest the feeling. Beyond this is a stage where language is inadequate, and one turns away with a gesture, a shrug, a withering glance. This is Worn. But there is a step beyond scorn, where the indignation is too bitter for silence, and must, by elaborating and exaggerating, grind the shameful conviction into one's soul, gloating over its artistic completeness. This is irony. Banter is the badinage of the French, irony their persiflage. Real irony seems to stand midway between banter and sarcasm. Banter is the playful and sarcasm the ferocious form of irony. . . . The peculiar mode of disputation adopted by Socrates consisted in a playful entanglement of his opponent in admissions which, while appearing to support and strengthen the argument of his opponent, in reality involved him in an absurd conclusion. He was made to take the bait, all unconscious of the hook by which he was to be captured. There was a perfect antagonism between the appearance and the fact—the appearance being the assurance of victory, the fact the certainty of defeat ; and the defeat was brought about by the use of the very weapons on which the disputant relied for success. This the Greeks called Elpooveia. — L. A. 1742. A true sarcasm is like a sword-stick—it appears at first sight to be much more innocent than it really is, till, of a sudden, there leaps something out of it—sharp, and deadly, and incisive, which makes you tremble and recoil. - SYDNE'YSlum. In polished society the dread of being ridiculous models every word and gesture into propriety, and produces an exquisite attention to the feelings and opinions of others ; it curbs the sallies of eccentricity, it recalls the attention of mankind to one uniform standard of reason and common-sense. --Symny Sims. Hence, too, the true ludicrous is its own end. When serious satire commences, or satire that is felt as serious, however comically dressed, free and genuine laughter ceases ; it becomes sardonic. -COLERIDGE. Ridicule is not only confined to questions of less moment, but is fitter for refuting error than for supporting truth, for restraining from wrong conduct than for inciting to the practice of what is right. Nor are these the sole restrictions ; it is not properly leveled at the false, but at the absurd in tenets ; nor can the edge of ridicule strike with equal force every species of misconduct ; it is not the criminal part which it attacks, but that which we denominate silly or foolish. —CAmpsum, i. 59. See also 64, 69. 7. Wit ig spontaneous humor may be cultivated. If you have real wit it will flow spontaneously, and you need not aim at it ; for in that case the rule of the Gospel is reversed, and it shall prove, seek and ye shall not find. -CHESTERFIELD. It does not, however, follow that no study is to be given to the expression of wit. The idea may be an inspiration, but not necessarily at the time of utterance. Oftener it is conceived in solitude, turned and polished in the mind, and then held in readiness for a fitting occasion. Only by this habit of perfecting the expression of a happy idea can be acquired the habit of expressing such ideas with precision and pungency when they are struck out in the friction of conversation. When the idea is thus conceived there are few even of those noted for their wit who do not pause to turn it over once or twice in their minds before giving it utterance. The condition of putting forth ideas in order to be witty operates much in the same salutary manner as the condition of finding rhymes in poetry ; it reduces the number of performers to those who have vigor enough to overcome incipient difficulties, and makes a sort of provision that that which need not be done at all should be done well whenever it is done. For we may observe that mankind are always more fastidious about that which is pleasing than they are about that which is useful. —SYDNEY Barra. On the other hand, to delve for sparkling sayings, to wrench and distort ideas and words for the sake of being funny, is as futile as it is contemptible. Perpetual aiming at wit is a very bad part of conversation. It is done to support a character ; it generally fails ; it is a sort of insult to the company and a restraint on the speaker. —Swn-r. The source of bad writing is the desire to be something more than a man of sense—the straining to be thought a genius, and it is just the same in speech- making. If men would only say what they have to say in plain terms how much more eloquent they would be. —CoLgatoGE. Hence to be recognized and invited as a witty man involves a responsibility and a condition of service few would care to assume. One might as well be asked as a newspaper reporter, or to play the violin for dancing. Soon after the war "Petroleum V. Nasby " attempted to lecture, and people went to hear him expecting to be amused. The lee biro was well enough in its way, but it was a serious discussion of the situation and people felt themselves aggrieved. People do not look for instruction to those by whom they are accustomed to be amused. "Professed wits, though they are generally courted for the amusement they afford, are seldom respected for the qualities they pos sess. " A witty man is a dramatic performer ; in process of time he can no mere exist without applause than he can exist without air ; if his audience be small, or if they are inattentive, or if a new wit defrauds him of any portion of his admiration, it is all over with him—he sickens and is extinguished. The applauses of the theatre in which he performs are so essential to him that he must obtain them at the expense of decency, friendship, and good feeling. It must be always probable, too, that a mere wit is a person of light and frivolous understanding. His business is not to discover relations of ideas that are useful, and have a real influence in life, but to discover the more trifling relations that are only amusing ; he never looks at things with the native eye of common sense, but is always gazing at the world through a Claude Lorraine glass — discovering a thousand appearances which are created only by the instrument of inspection, and covering every object with factitious and unnatural colors. In short, the character of a mere wit it is impossible to consider as very amiable, very respectable, or very safe. —SYDNEY SDIITH. Oliver Wendell Holmes informs us that— It is a very serious thing To be a funny man, and most of those who have gained a reputation for wit, or made the acquaintance of one of those preternaturally solemn and funereal. looking individuals whose lives are made miserable by the consciousness that thu public looks to them for a diurnal dose of disguised physic in the shape of jokes, can corroborate the genial doctor's statement The responsibility entailed by a reputation for being a perennial font of spontaneous humor is enough to make a men prematurely aged. He must constantly maintain a high water of hilarity, and occasionally surpass himself. Not saCsfted with his professional efforts in this line, he is expected to scatter jests around him in his daily walk and conversation, to write neatly turned epigrams for young ladies' albums, and to scintillate at social entertainments. It he is invited out to dinner, it is a tacit understanding that he shall pay for the meal by his humor, and it behooves him to go plentifully provided with a stock of extempore puns and conundrums, to be dispensed at appropriate intervals. If he does not feel up to the mark, his host will probably stir up his flagging energies with the remark that he Is unusually dull, or some other pleasing reminder of his breach of the implied oontract. A fearful warning against the social perils of a humorist's career 12 conveyed by the anecdote of the gentleman who habitually earned his dinner by his wit, and on one °octillion of temporary absent-mindedness was recalled to a sense of his duties to society by the following message, delivered in an audible tone by the daughter of the booties: "Mamma's compliments to Mr. —, and she wishes to know when he is going to begin to be funny. "—Boston Trawler. PRACTICAL JOKES We most of us attempt to be funny only in speech. Mimicry and contortion, the imitation of deformity and the antics of the clown, are usually left to hired performers. Our attempts to be funny are in the direction of the comedy of knowledge—that is, comedy evolved from the unexpected detection of definite relations—which we call wit ; or of the comedy of ignorance— that is, comedy evolved from a reference to indefinite and indefinable relations— which we call humor. The practical joke is not yet banished, but it is justly looked upon as vulgar and stupid. We may yield to a sudden impulse to pull the chair from behind a person just sitting down, but we are ashamed both of the act and of the disposition that prompts it. Such acts, like a horse-laugh, may show exuberance of animal spirits, but they lower the perpetrator, both in his own esteem and in that of his companions. The actor Sothern was much given t3 practical jokes. He had once invited a company to dinner, and though one of the intended guests was not present at the hour appointed he insisted upon beginning the meal. Presently the belated guest was heard entering the hall. Sothern instantly proposed that the whole company should get under the table. Without an objection, trusting to the actor's wit for some comical climax, the unsuspecting guests hurriedly crawled upon the floor and awaited results, quite unaware thattheir host had kept his seat and was finishing his soup. The tardy guest was full of apologies. "Don't mention it, " said Sothern, "we are only at soup ; sit down and be helped. " The gentleman did so with a puzzled look at the empty chairs around the table. "0, " said Sothern, "you miss the other gentlemen. They are all here, but for some inexplicable reason the moment you were announced they all crept under the table. What they are doing there is more than I know. " It is easier to imagine than to describe the various expressions upon the faces of the victims, as, one by one, they crawled out and resumed their chairs. But it is safe to say they were all cured of participating in practical jokes proposed by Mr. Sothern. An ingenious writer has propounded what he calls "The Gelatic System, " a theory of the history of laughter. Pre-humoristic Age. —It is a psychological fact that brutes are devoid of humor, and that savages have a minimum. So evenly did mind and humor keep pace that prior to the time men laughed they did not know enough to keep a record of events. This age, then, exactly covered what are known as pre-historic times. Bacchanalian Aga—Theinnate germ of mirth doubtless sprang up under the enlivening influence of wine. The type of this age was drunken silliness, humor of the lowest order. The character of Thersites, in Shakespeare’s "Troilus and Cressida, " is an anachronism, for Thersites could not have been the representative humorist of his time. Though Bacchanalian orgies have always nourished, the epoch of history characterized by them came to an end B. C. 550. Burlesque Age, B. C. 550-A. D. 478. —Becoming more refined, the people were loath to laugh at themselves, and sought how they might laugh at each other. Hence the rise of comedy, for in comedy the laugh is not at the actor himself, but at the person he represents. The Burlesque Age embraces the three well-known forma of comedy, namely: the Old Comedy (caricature). the Middle Comedy (criticism), and the New Comedy (manners). Though Greece and Rome were the proprietors of comedy, the spirit of burlesque was rife everywhere, even among the Jews. In accordance with the principle of the parallel growth of mind and humor, it will be noticed that the decline of humor at the time of the Empire was exactly proportional to the decline of mental activity. Hunchback Age, A. D. 476-750 -. -The barbarians, of course, had very shallow conceptions of the ludicrous. The discrepancy in height between a tall and a short man, or 'my personal deformity, was enough to capsize the gravity of a king. A dwarf or a hunchback was an indispensable member of a prince's retinue, and a hunchback was a luxury fit for an emperor. RUM Age, A. D. 750-e50. —Mental deformity was discovered to be more comical than physical, and diligent search was made for idiots to add the Crowning grace to noble households. First-class idiots were of course reserved for the king. An extra-stupid Idiot of superior imbecility and profound obtuseness is said to have lived in the days of Charles the Fat. It is not an interesting period to linger over. Clown Age, A. 1). 950-1150. —The reign of the natural idiot was followed by that of the artificial idiot, who, though called like his professor fool. was really a keen-witted buffoon. Touchstone, in As You Like It, " and Wamba, son of Witless in " Ivanhoe. " are representative " fools " of this period, when wit began to sparkle as not before sinoo Terence. Traces of the Clown Age are still to be seen in the circus and the pantomime. g. Illaaguerading Age, A. 1). 1850-1500. —People now became eager for more fun, and studied how to develop their own creative humor. Humor took a fantastic turn ; everybody was seized with an bnitative spirit, and straightway sprang up the idea of a show, in which everybody might select a part and play it to suit himself, the fun being proportional to the incongruousness of the action with the character. ' b. Dinner-Table Age, A. D. 1500-1615. —The next type of humor was personal bantering. Every Falstaff received standing invitations to dinner, and was welcome at all hours. Clubs were formed whose object was the evolution of jocularity through the medium of the flowing bawl, the prototypes of some modern organizations. Royalty itself txied to be witty, as witness the jokes of King Jamul at the expense of &genie. L Book Age, AD. 1625-1850. —liamor was next boiled down and bottled up ready for use in a book. Three varieties are noticeable : a6rial, . such as the shy, delicate, sensitive airiness of Addison, Steele, Goldsmith, Hawthorne—often so deliciously coy as to elude laughter ; grotesque, the characteristic variety of a motley crowd, led first by Don Quixote, and Afterward by Tom and Jerry ; satiric, which is subdivided into (I) satires on man, like Swift's Gulliver and 13yron's Don Juan; and tii) satires on men, i. e. , not on the way God has seen fit to make man, but on men's errors and foibles. k. Newspaper Age, A. D. 1850. —Though the humorous book is still written, and always will be written, it no longer typifies a historic era. Indeed, remnants of all former ages are seen to-day. Carousals are common: the comedian still pries open the mouth ; side-shows exhibit among other wonderful curiosities dwarfs and idiots; harlequin still tickles the ribs; masquerades and carnivals are still popular, especially in romance countries; jests pass from lip to lip, end slang, an off-shoot of the Dinner-Table Age, Is aweed of luxurious growth : you can sit in solitude and smile at the vagaries of your favorite author ; but the funny newspaper man is supreme. He is the Jupiter of the humorous heavens and earth, and every day you can see his lightnings and hear his thunder. DANGERS OF WIT AND HUMOR. "See what a command of language those Irish orators have, " remarked someone to Archbishop Whately. "See rather what command language has of them, " was the reply. Wit, of all powers the most envied and dreaded, becomes a curse when it forgets its legitimate service as one of man's agencies of usefulness. Humor, which lightens every load, illumines every darkness, cheers every heart, diverts every sorrow, which has well been called the great lubricator of life, must yet remain subordinate to judgment and duty, or it will prey like a fungus, rotting to the core what it seems only to adorn. For humor is, after all, a view of life that distorts. It may be diverting from its novelty to have A )1ark Tapley exult in his master's wretched plights because it makes it creditable to be jolly ; but after all it is better to be wise enough to avoid wretched plights. A view of life that makes our wretchedness less by dwelling on the disadvantages of those who are happy will, if carried too far, lead us to underestimate the distance between wretchedness and happiness, and thus remove the spur to ambition. Humor is one of the elements of genius ; but if it predominate it becomes a makeshift. Humor accompanies the decadence of art, which it destroys and annihilates. —GoNrsz. Especially is it the tendency of humor to break down the distinctions of right and wrong. Is there someone humorifio point common to all that can be called humorous ? I am not prepared to answer this fully, even if my time permitted ; but I think there is, and that it consists in a certain reference to the general and the universal, by which the finite great is brought into identity with the little, or the little with the finite great, so as to make both nothing in comparison with the infinite. The little is made great, and the great little, in order to destroy both ; because all is equal in contrast with the infinite. . . . . My devil was to be, like Goethe's, the universal humorist, who should make all things vain and nothing worth by a perpetual collation of the great with the little in the presence of the infinite. - COLERIDGE. If we wish to find a passage from irony to humor we should have to look for it in cases where good-nature assumes the positive attribute of impartiality, because humor is a kind of disposition to adopt the whole of human nature, fuse all its distinctions, tolerate all its infirmities, and assemble vice and misery to receive rations of good cheer. —WEIss. All this is wrong and harmful. So far as humor helps us to bear the evils we cannot help it is a blessing ; but let us beware lest it make us content with imperfections that we might remove, faults that we might cure, apathy that unnerves us. In comparison with the infinite, human accomplishment is indeed at highest but insignificant. But human purpose has all the possibilities of infinitude itself, and man will approach the infinite only as he cleaves fast to moral distinctions. SOUTH MOUNTAIN, CATSKILLS, September 8, 1867. How broad and beautiful a belt Of landscape cloth the eye attain ; The hills and vales together melt Into a low and level plain. Thus men are great and men are small In human eyes ; Bo puny all, Mat none took tail Been from the skies. Yet gleam the colors fresh and bright, The fields are green ; the Hudson blue; The harvests bathe in golden light ; Diamonds sparkle in the dew. Bo have Me acts of humankind Distinctive hue ; Noble from base is clear defined In highest view. Sydney Smith concludes: "I wish, after all I have said about wit and humor, thatI could satisfy myself of their good effects upon the character and disposition ; but I am convinced the probable tendency of both is to corrupt the understanding and the heart. " "In cheerful souls, " says Novalis, "there is no wit. Wit is a disturbance of the equipoise. " But this is true only where wit and humor have undue predominance. Says Hazlitt, "Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be. " When the perception of this difference causes laughter alone, humor is indeed corroding. He who can make sport of sins has defective notions as to their enormity, and leads others to think too lightly of committing them. What more plain nonsense can there be than to be earnest in jest, to be continual in divertissement, or constant in pastime, to make extravagance all our play, and sauce all our diet? Is not this plainly the life of a child that is ever busy yet never bath anything to do ? or the life of that inimical brute which is always active in playing uncouth and unlucky tricks, which, could it speak, might surely pass well for a professed wit ?—Bauitow. We see in needleworks and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground ; judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. — BACON. TOPICAL ANALYSIS. Need of relaxation, p. 92. Theories of the ludicrous, P. 98. Hobbes, p. 98; Haven, P. 93; Haslitt, P. 94; Quintilian, P. 94; Sidney, P. 94. Laughter not necessarily scornful, pp. 94-97. Herbert Spencer's theory, pp. 97-99. Does not account for the pleasure, pp. 99, 100. Aristotle's theory, p. 101. The incongruous and the inconvenient, P. 101. The ludicrous not an absolute relation, P. 102. Sacred subjects not to be trifled with, p. 108. Why the ludicrous gives pleasure, P. 104. The theory of pleasure, 104. Perception of the ludicrous, 105. Not universal, p 105. Not to be acquired, p. 108. Value not factitious, p. 107. Not to be obtruded, p. 108. Enjoyed in proportion to the difficulty, p. 109. Conventional jokes, P. 110. American humor, pp. 111-118. CHAP. VII. ] TOPICAL ANALYSIS. 137 Wit and humor distinguished, p. 113. • Humor expected, wit unexpected, p. 114. • • Humor continuous, wit instantaneous, p. 115. • • Humor may appear in action, wit only in word, p. 116. • • Wit may be imaginative, humor involves character, p. 116. Puns, p. 117. • • Humor lies in sentiment, wit in understanding, p. 122. • • Humor is based on sympathy, wit may be without it, p. 122. Irony, p. 123. • 7. Humor may be cultivated, wit is spontaneous, p. 128. Disadvantages of being considered witty, p. 129. Practical jokes, p 131. The Gelatic system, p. 132. Dangers of wit and humor, p. 138. SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. What do you think of Sothern's joke (page 181)? Are the stories on pages 71, 229, and 258, witty or humorous ? category:humor